About The Lee County ledger. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1978-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 7, 2019)
Page 4C, The Lee County Ledger, Wednesday, August 7,2019 UGA Extension training helps keep Georgia’s produce safe Special to the Ledger By Merritt Melancon for CAES News Over the past decade, Americans have fallen in love with locally grown produce, but just because something is grown nearby doesn’t automatically make it safe. Small and beginning farmers, who put a lot of their energy into pro ducing quality vegeta bles, might not have the education or experience to know how to keep their produce as safe as possible. That’s why University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is partnering with local food advocates and farmers across the state to offer produce safety training. The training helps farmers ensure that they’re providing their customers the safest produce possible and helps them meet new food safety regulations without the added ex pense of consultants or private trainers. “People just don’t think about some of the issues,” said Judy Harrison, professor and Extension food safety specialist in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “But we know there can be food safety issues with locally grown food just like there can be problems with food that is shipped here from other places if the food is handled improperly.” Harrison has devel oped training materials for small farms and farmers market man agers to enhance food safety at farmers mar kets. Harrison — along with UGA Extension personnel and educa tors with the Georgia Department of Agricul ture, Georgia Organics, the Georgia Fruit and Vegetables Growers Association, and the National Farmers Coali tion — have conducted Produce Safety Alliance grower training across the state that meets re quirements for growers under the Food Safety Modernization Act. Some basic practices covered in the train ing include follow ing National Organic Program guidelines for appropriate wait ing periods between raw manure application and harvesting, water testing, proper compost ing of manure, keeping animals out of growing areas, using potable water to wash produce after harvest, and keep ing produce cool after harvest. Harrison and her partners hosted the training for groups of up to 50 farmers at community centers and UGA Extension county offices across Georgia. At UGA, food scien tists Mark Harrison and Faurel Dunn have shared training respon sibilities with Judy Har rison. Dunn will lead the program after Judy Harrison retires later this year. So far more than 900 farmers have gone through the low-cost training programs, al lowing them to enhance PRE-K BREAKFAST MENU Monday, August 12 Breakfast Pizza, Fruit, Milk Tuesday, August 13 Cereal, Toast, Fruit, Milk Wednesday, August 14 Sausage, Egg & Cheese Wrap, Fruit, Milk Thursday, August 15 Cereal, Toast, Fruit, Milk Friday, August 16 Chicken Biscuit, Fruit, Milk LEE COUNTY PRIMARY KINCHAFOONEE PRIMARY BREAKFAST MENU Monday, August 12 Goody Ring, Fruit, Milk Tuesday, August 13 Cereal, Toast, Fruit, Milk Wednesday, August 14 Chicken & Waffles, Fruit, Milk Thursday, August 15 Cereal, Toast, Fruit, Milk Friday, August 16 Ham Biscuit, Fruit, Milk LEE COUNTY SCHOOLS BREAKFAST MENU Monday, August 12 Goody Ring or Cereal, Toast, Fruit, Milk Tuesday, August 13 French Toast Sticks, Bacon or Cereal, Toast, Fruit, Milk Wednesday, August 14 Chicken & Waffles or Cereal, Toast, Fruit, Milk Thursday, August 15 Pancake Pup or Cereal, Toast, Fruit, Milk Friday, August 16 Chicken Biscuit or Cereal, Toast, Fruit, Milk Submitted Photo Celia Barss, the owner of Woodland Gardens in Winterville, Georgia, sorts tomatoes in the packinghouse on the organic farm. Barrs is one of the hundreds of Georgia farmers who attended produce safety courses held by UGA Extension over the past three years. Submitted Photos In addition to produce safety procedures, UGA Extension helps farmers develop record keeping plans to help keep them in line with FDA food safety guidelines. Cory McCue of Woodland Gardens in Winterville, Georgia, makes notes about the farm’s July harvest in the packinghouse while Christine White packs shishito peppers into 10-pound bags. the safety on their farms and to comply with U.S. Food and Drug Admin istration produce safety regulations. Produce safety train ings have three goals: to keep consumers safe and healthy; to help Georgia’s farmers stay compliant with food safety regulations to market safe food; and to help protect the health of Georgia’s burgeoning local food industry. “Food safety is just good marketing,” said Judy Harrison. “Even if your product is not involved in an outbreak, your sales still can be affected. ... It only takes one scare to ruin the market.” While consumers may associate food safety issues with dairy or meat products, fresh vegetables are often the culprit. Between 1998 and 2008, about 46% of foodborne illness in the U.S. was caused by fresh produce. The more people opt for fresh, un processed produce, the greater the risk of ill ness when that produce is not handled correctly, said Judy Harrison. To help curb these numbers, the U.S. Congress passed the Food Safety Moderniza tion Act, which updated food safety regulations across several indus tries, including produc tion agriculture and, for the first time, created nationwide standards for growing, harvesting and handling produce. Under the law, farms may be required to have at least one manager on site who has undergone produce safety training certified by the Associa tion of Food and Drug Officials. If farms are selling small amounts of fresh produce and other foods, and if they are selling it directly to consumers through farmers markets, they may be exempt from the rule. However, even these farms should have some food safety training to keep their customers safe. Celia Barss, owner of Woodland Gardens, a small organic farm in Winterville, par ticipated in one of the UGA trainings. “The information was really great,” said Barss. “The class made it feel less overwhelming. Some times the regulations you have to meet feel insurmountable, so we are now doing our best to implement what we can on our farm.” A 12-acre organic farm certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wood land Gardens is just one type of operation that UGA Extension’s produce safety training programs were designed to help. There are about 20,000 farms in Georgia that involve less than 50 acres, according to the 2017 USDA census of agriculture. Farge-scale produce farming opera tions can also benefit. “We have seen ex amples across the nation of foodborne illness outbreaks from produce causing not just ill nesses, but deaths. And we’ve seen farmers lose their businesses. No one wants either of those outcomes to happen from Georgia produce. Dave, From page 2C And the big downside is you’re going to feel like you did something important. The way you end up with money is by investing money. The way you end up with more money is by invest ing more money. You can argue all you want that using things like these create extra money. Yeah, but not really. The returns are still micro. An app doesn’t make two dollars turn into twenty dollars. It’s okay to use apps like that. I’m not mad at them, and I don’t think they’re a rip-off or Our goal in UGA Extension is to help keep Georgia farms in business and help keep consumers safe,” said Judy Harrison. In Georgia, the 2017 farm gate value was $1.15 billion for veg etables and $704.8 mil lion for fruits and nuts, according to the UGA Center for Agribusiness and Economic Develop ment. Merritt Melancon is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sci ences. anything like that. What worries me about these kinds of things, in an investing sense, is they give the illusion that you’ve done something significant with your money. —Dave * Dave Ramsey is CEO of Ramsey Solutions. He has authored seven best selling books, includ ing The Total Money Makeover. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 16 million listeners each week on 600 radio stations and multiple digital plat forms. Follow Dave on the web at daveramsey. com and on Twitter at @ DaveRamsey.
